Page 72 of Royal Guard

I walked around the table towards Belliani. He got up so fast, he knocked his chair over. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. He bumped into Garrett and then shrank back from his furious expression. When he looked at me, though, he looked even more scared. He backed through the door as if not daring to turn his back. “Sorry,” he kept repeating. “Thank you, sorry.”

I nodded coldly and pushed the door closed behind him. I just had time to turn around—

Garrett pinned me to the door with his kiss.

54

KRISTINA

Breathless.That’s the best way I can describe it. Breathless because it happened so fast. Breathless because neither of us wanted to stop to breathe. Our mouths were panting and desperate, our lips finding each other so easily, trained by countless hours of fantasy. Our tongues explored each other, finally free, and then danced joyously together.

All of my focus was on the kiss, on the way his lips sought and demanded, on the way they pressed and spread me just right. So it took a while for anything else to sink in.

I was up against the door.Upagainst the door. As in, my feet were actually off the ground. Those big hands were on my hips, just below the hard ridge where my corset finished, and they were pinning my ass to the door. My feet dangled but I didn’t slip: I was held there as securely as if I was sitting on a seat.

He was pressed against me from groin to chest, his hard body pressing me tight against the wall and eventighter each time he inhaled. But it wasn’t uncomfortable: I felt gloriously safe and protected. And...small.There was something about being held there so easily. After being The Queen non-stop for days, after all those huge decisions, to be...manhandledand kissed and just be passive was exactly what I needed.

My head was rocking against the hard wood of the door as he kissed me: luckily, my pinned-up hair at the back was a perfect cushion. He finally broke the kiss and drew his head back just a few inches so that he could look at me. He lifted one big hand to my face and took my chin firmly between finger and thumb. To keep me pinned there, he pressed his groin hard against mine and I swallowed as I felt the hard bulge of him through his uniform pants.

I searched his face. What had changed: what had finally broken through all the reasonswhy not?

His thumb and forefinger flexed in slow rhythm where they gripped my chin. I could feel the sexual heat, throbbing through him, almost beyond control. “Can’t fight it anymore,” he growled. “Not when you’re….” He inhaled, his chest expanding with lust and pressing me even harder against the wall. His eyes flicked over me, telling me what he couldn’t put into words.

When I’m so buttoned up and corseted and formal and imperious.

When I’m a queen.

He was the opposite of Belliani. That bastard had resented a woman in power. I threatened him. The only thing I was good for was being a trophy: he wanted me so he could strip me down to nothing, to make me come begging to his bed, to show that Iwasn’treallya leader.

But Garrett had wanted me when I was in jeans in a rib shack and when I was bruised and dirty and shivering in a sewer. He wantedme.Yes, all the formality turned him on and yes, he wanted to strip it all from me. But not to weaken me, like Belliani. To release what he knew was underneath.

I hesitated for a second. There’d be others like Belliani. There was my mother, there was the media, the people. None of them would like the idea of me with a commoner.

Garrett saw it in my eyes and his eyes grew stern. “Kristina,” he rumbled. “For once in your goddamn life, do whatyouwant.”

I looked into those clear blue eyes...and kissed him as hard as I could.

He groaned in pleasure and pushed his body even harder against mine, freeing his hands so that he could run them up and down my sides. Then he suddenly grabbed my waist and lifted me, carrying me across the room. We were still kissing and the feeling of being carried,floating,almost, my feet kicking in the air while I hung from his hands, was heady and amazing. He walked me over to a wall and pinned me there, still kissing me. His hands roamed over my body, over my hips and thighs and breasts, until I was squirming and panting.

He broke the kiss and stared at me, eyes hooded with lust. My lips were throbbing, hungry for him.

He reached for the fastenings at the back of my dress. My eyes widened. “Here?”

“Yes, dammit,” he growled “Here.”

And he undressed me. Or tried to. The dress wasn’t designed with quick exits in mind. “First you need toopen the catch at the top,” I panted. “Then there are pearl buttons that unhook, right down the—”

His big hands grabbed the fabric at the front of the bodice on both sides.Oh.

The sound of tearing filled the room. The cloth was thick and heavy, but in his hands it ripped apart like tissue. He tore it right down to my waist and then, with a shrug of my shoulders and a twist of my hips, the whole thing slithered down to the floor.

I stood there in just my cream-colored corset, panties and heels. And the crown, of course. My whole body was tingling and throbbing. The exhaustion had dropped away completely: adrenaline was flooding through every vein. I looked down at the dress on the floor. It was wrong and yet having it ripped off me felt soright.

He lifted me again and then laid me down on the table on my back. The polished wood was silky smooth and cool against my heated skin. He smoothed his hands over the lines of the corset: it was a fully-boned one in glossy cream, with gold trim. It started just at the waistband of my panties, scooped in at the waist, then blossomed outwards a little as it lifted and squeezed my breasts. I was covered...just.But without the dress there was a great deal of cleavage on display and that was where Garrett’s eyes were now locked. His gaze was just feasting on me and I pressed my thighs hard together at the feeling.

He grabbed my ankles and pulled me to the edge of the table. He grabbed my panties and jerked them down my legs and off and I gasped at the sudden shock of the cool air. Then he was stepping between my legs, lowering his uniform pants and—

I swallowed. Stared at the thick length of his cock,heavy as it brushed my inner thigh. He rolled on the condom and—

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